Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] Keralam State secretary M.V. Govindan has denied reports that the organisation’s apex leadership in the State held dissimilar views about the reasons for the Left Democratic Front (LDF)’s Assembly election debacle. 

He said in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday (September 3, 2026) that Leader of the Opposition and Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan’s statement that betrayal, internal sabotage and party workers’ susceptibility to false propaganda had upended the LDF’s winning prospects in the Kannur district, a party bastion for long, was not at variance with the party central committee’s findings about the reasons for the LDF’s poor showing at the polls.

He said the right-wing media had cherry-picked Mr. Vijayan’s speech and distorted his statement to portray that the party leadership was at odds with itself regarding the reasons for the LDF’s defeat.

Denies bid to shift blame

Mr. Govindan said Mr. Vijayan had never attempted to shift blame or avoid collective accountability by blaming party betrayers and rebels. 

Mr. Govindan said the insinuation that former Finance Minister and CPI(M) central committee member T.M. Thomas Isaac’s statement that a general perception of haughtiness had affected the LDF’s poll prospects was an oblique criticism of Mr. Vijayan was a chimaera. He said Dr. Isaac’s statement dovetailed with the central committee’s findings as did Mr. Vijayan’s speeches. 

Hindutva agenda

Mr. Govindan said Congress’s elastic Hindutva agenda was evident in the United Democratic Front (UDF) government’s latest move to introduce a Bill that would cede control of State-funded universities to the Governor. He said the UDF sought to reverse the legal and political battles fought by the previous LDF dispensation to insulate State-funded universities from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government’s saffronisation agenda and to preserve the autonomy of the centres of higher learning. Mr. Govindan said the UDF’s attempt to open the door for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to subvert Keralam’s progressive, secular and liberal higher education sector would not go unanswered and the CPI(M) would muster public opinion to resist the “treacherous move.” 

He said the UDF had no qualms about allowing the rendition of Vande Mataram in full at university functions, despite the Constituent Assembly sanctioning only the first two stanzas of the composition as the succeeding lyrics broadcast Hindu religious iconography. 

Mr. Govindan warned the UDF against attempting to stifle students’ protests by unleashing the police.